Timbo Slice

Everything on the show just feels lifeless, to be honest. And great matches aren’t the antidote. There’s just nothing really appealing about so many folks on the roster right now. The folks who are over stand out way more than the others, and the fatigue on a lot of folks is starting to show. When you have to get Paul Wight involved, who is sadly obviously hobbled, that’s a bit too much. Next week? They’re running the Oakland Arena for Rampage/Collision and they only are selling tickets camera side lower bowl. I’m considering going knowing I can get walk up tickets no problem, but have no idea what the show quality is going to be like. There’s just no juice there. The creative is bad, they’re not doing a good job elevating talent, it seems like even the basic things are falling well short. A lot of odd transitions in matches and between segments. The prevailing idea is they’re spinning their wheels waiting on folks to get healthy and TV money, but considering the resources and the talent, it really feels like they’re fumbling the ball.

Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Dude deserves better. YEAH

Road Warrior Pop for Okada. And Bryan.

Goofy-ass home invasion bullshit, man, not all ideas are good ones.

And there’s Ric.

Guessing it’s a quick ratings boost with a swerve to lead to a rematch. Wait? Are they doing a picture-in-picture for Toni’s bit?!??

Fucking Abdullah in a box, natch.

Who do you think Cardblade dresses up as this year?

If I remember right, the Fujiwara draw argument comes down to longevity as a true top draw and the “failure” of his promotions he started relative to other shoot-style outfits, which makes sense in some ways but was overblown.

We’re so in synch it’s scary. Can’t believe they’re just gonna feed LA Knight to Roman like that. Bring back the Dummy button.

How LA Knight hasn’t called someone a Basic Bitch yet is beyond me.

An hour away from where I live. And I might have early Thanksgiving plans that take me out of the running to see it live. Bah.

That defense is great. Perfect storm of a lot of issues.

I’m stoked you’re doing that project!

Yeah, that looks fantastic.

Raul Fucking Julia, man.

Eagles needed shitty booking to get them to the Super Bowl. Purdy out here like he’s on the march to a WM main event. Meanwhile, Raw is gonna be spinning in place something fierce prior to Survivor Series.

I know they’re trying these lucha acts and they do decently with the live crowd, but outside of the Lucha Bros, there’s really no rhyme or reason to their usage. One of the more maddening things about the AAA partnership. Nick Wayne being a smug piece of shit is a good look.

A way to get the belts off FTR and transition them to the Bucks, more than likely.

Beauty Pair/Fujiwara/Meiko are easy ones for me in Japan. The US/Canada choices basically boil down to how much you think being a modern draw matters. Roman is the only real lock, but there are arguments for half a dozen others that are all very different. Like, Punk, by metrics of this HOF, should be a shoe-in. But recent events are going to influence that way more than the 15 active years that proved he was unquestionably an influential, drawing, good worker. But then do you give credit to Moxley for being the true catalyst for AEW when he jumped and being with the Shield? Is Rollins as a top secondary draw worthy of discussion? I keep getting sucked in year after year just because I like seeing the discourse just absolutely fall to shit, but the popular discourse is not nearly as enticing as the edge cases. Slaughter needs to get in at some point given some of the other folks who are in.

She’d bend it for you

Cardblade the best draw they have anyways

Ratings barely matter too (blown out of proportion relative to TV contracts), but whatever allows you to back up the narrative. MLB playoffs were all over last night, too, and Dynamite is moving next week to accommodate. Both matter as much as you want them, too, and my qualifier is that when you see SUCH a discrepancy, it should be a red flag as to why that’s the case. Context matters for ratings just like the YT numbers. If the game is to just cherry pick things to make a point, the discussion goes nowhere. There aren’t “lessons” to be learned here. It’s clear that Tony is hands-off with a lot and trusts talent to come up with most things, which is highly beneficial for on-screen, but not great for business. He books in bunches and only has a long-term view on a couple of stories. He’s also overly reactive, if not impulsive in a lot of ways. That’s not a good recipe for success if you’re constantly burning through things just because you want to see the matchup.

Here are the YouTube views for Dynamite segments last night: -Cole/Roddy skit: 32K -Storm/Blue: 145K -Omega/Jericho tag: 151K -MJF Beatdown: 343K -MJF/Cole skit: 140K -Acclaimed: 42K -Wardlow: 181K -Toni segment: 64K -Fenix/Nick Jackson: 120K -Edge segment: 1.7M -Edge overrun: 639K Look, I know people want some of the long-time AEW folks to get their shine, but one of the great ways of determining interest is looking at baseline engagement numbers. Those aren’t just a tiny bit better than the top acts; those are 5-10 standard deviations above the norm for AEW vids. That’s what Edge brings. That’s basically where Punk was trending. It’s what got LA Knight his push. This shit matters and it’s why certain moves are made.